


The Curious Case of the Second Year on the Ceiling [Spring]

by nothingbutfic



Series: A love for all seasons. [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Canon Compliant, M/M, MWPP-era, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-15
Updated: 2015-11-15
Packaged: 2018-05-01 18:14:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5215745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nothingbutfic/pseuds/nothingbutfic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>March, 1977. Remus knows that Sirius Orion Black is the most perfectly impossible person in the whole wide world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Curious Case of the Second Year on the Ceiling [Spring]

**Author's Note:**

> For Frost. Lots of Bowie references too, as he is the musical muse for my Remus Lupin. Part of the same sequence as 'a shorter study in domestic bliss': and yes, at some point I will edit them all again to make sense and add coherence. 3 more parts to go!

Spring. It’s all heather and pollen, and Remus is glad he doesn’t get hay fever, not with his senses. The days are warm and the nights are cold, just right for fifth years and above to get their hormones on. He’s already interrupted two couples tonight, and just shrugged and made talk about how it must be something to do with the approaching full moon, as skirts were pulled down, panties pulled up, and belts fastened.

He doesn’t embarrass easily: there’s a piercing resolve to his gaze that embarrasses most other students, but Remus’ regard is sympathetic as much as it is focussed. His charges feel like they’ve been let off with a kindly lecture and a shared promise not to tell any teachers, even if Remus didn’t need to say any of it. His eyes, his tone, that says enough.

So class is done, and so are rounds, but the day’s not. Remus can’t shake the dust of responsibility from his heels no matter where he goes: younger students take note of him, gangly and amiable, teachers more wary in their observances. Everyone knows who his friends are, the lies he’s told with a straight freckled face to cover for them: even Remus doesn’t doubt what he’s capable of - he understands that all too well.

He knows he’s a monster wrapped in a tweed jacket and school trousers, and those smiling teeth can _snap_.

His prefect duties are almost an exercise in pedantry, really: what ever would harm them in Hogwarts? It’s outside the castle, in the vale and in the street, under mist and moon and Dark Mark that the bodies are piling up. Or worse. But he does his duty because that’s what duty is, and Remus John Lupin is nothing if not a creature of habit.

The irony in that phrase makes him laugh so hard sometimes he wants to cry. At least with every corner taken, every passageway measured, he makes sure to step on the cracks, and barrels up moving stairways with crazy abandon, two-at-a-time. It’s his break in the pattern, his deliberate daring at a world that’s damned him still. There’s still a spring in his step as he lands with a flourish in front of the Fat Lady, all but freewheeling for a few moments before he steadies himself.

He looks at her. She doesn’t applaud.

“You’re a terrible audience,” Remus tells her, with a practiced grin that just manages to be cheeky enough to ease the sting, and mentions the password before she can scold him.

Sniffing, she opens up and lets him in, and Remus is instantly alert. There’s a crowd of students - younger ones especially - gathered at the entrance of the portrait-hole, second years and third years mostly. They note who he is, glancing up - he’s tall and lithe even for a seventh year, with a certain joyful grace in his body that some may think of as predatory, but he’s earned that grace, and bears the silvered scars.

Not many of his fellow students know quite as well who they are as he does, and that self-knowledge gives him a certain authenticity. “Excuse me,” Remus says, again, and again, managing to squeeze and ease his way through, and when one first year near the front looks up at him with fear on his face, Remus automatically ruffles hair and lays a reassuring hand on their shoulder. “Let’s have a look at this, then,” he murmurs, because Remus is here and all will be good.

It’s one of the promises he’s tried to keep as prefect, as student, as friend, and he knows just where the promise has frayed. Tatty, threadbare, like too many of his jumpers.

The sight that greets him isn’t much of a surprise: Sirius Orion Black is sitting on the end of one of the more battered couches in the common room, with his legs over the arm and looking so poised and still he might be some kind of bloody model. Not for the first time, Remus despises him for a brief moment and loves him all the more: it is far too easy to love someone that handsome, that nonchalant, that carefree. Especially for someone like Remus who is _nothing but_ cares.

Peter is sitting on the rug worrying at his lip. That too is not a surprise. But he is looking up, gaze fixed like most of the crowd on the ceiling. Now that Remus has assessed there’s no injury, no scent of blood, he looks up as well, to see what’s so interesting, and-

Oh.

“Sirius.”

Sirius moves then, as if Remus’ words stir him into motion, laying back on the couch with his long hair pooled out, hands tucked behind his head without a care in the world. “Yes, Lupin?”

They have layers of course; all students have ways and means and names. They are Lupin or Black or Pettigrew to teachers; or each other when Remus has to play Prefect, as he does now; they are Remus and Sirius and Peter in class or in the halls, and they are Moony, Padfoot and Wormtail in those quiet, secret times.

Remus remembers suddenly a moment when Peter called Sirius ‘Padfoot’ in the halls where it might have been heard by anyone, and was taken aback (but not shocked, exactly) by the force of Sirius’ explosive anger. “It’s a fucking _secret name_ , Peter,” Sirius had rounded on him, getting so close that Remus had thought he’d have to pull the taller boy off the shorter. “So keep it fucking secret and do us all a favour and just don’t fucking try to _talk_.”

They have been vaguely horrible to Peter, each in their own way, Remus thinks: Sirius is horrible to most people in fits and turns, so why should he exclude it from his friends?

But now the roles are taken: Sirius is Black and so Remus is Prefect.

“Black,” Remus says coolly, “why is there a second year on the ceiling?”

“Why are you blaming me?” Sirius asks, and does something extravagantly indignant with his hair. “ _Rude_.”

“It was Sirius’ fault,” Peter chips in.

“Thank you, Peter,” says Remus.

“Oh, god, Peter, you’re such a tattle-tale,” says Sirius, almost at the same time.

Peter looks deeply unhappy and starts to bite his fingernails.

“Where’s James?” Remus asks Peter, _sotto voce_.

“Out pawing Evans,” Sirius answers first, desultory, and flings himself onto his stomach, kicking his legs up.

“Er, yes.” Peter acknowledges.

“Right.” Remus straightens, meets the eyes of the poor young girl who has found herself affixed to the ceiling, and manages a cheery “Don’t worry, we’ll get you down soon.” She manages to stop sniffling, and trusts him for some reason he hasn’t yet found.

They all trust him. It’s kind of terrible, really. But he has to bear it because the fear of disappointing them is worse.

“So how did it happen, Sirius?” he asks, patience wearing thin. But he uses ‘Sirius’ because he doesn’t think discipline is necessary just yet.

“Well,” Sirius tells him, and he does enjoy a good audience, “I sort of - for fun, you know - I just sort of gestured at her and went ‘Alley-ooop’. And she rose up into the air.” He scratches his nose, mostly for effect. He does like commanding centre stage. “Much like a balloon,” he adds, as if Sirius has ever seen a balloon.

“You did _what_?”

“Alley-oop?” He gestures the way Remus has seen on the telly a few times, from those Harlem Globetrotter films, not even bothering to open his eyes to enjoy his own spectacle, a lazy, inconsiderate lump. It’s a perfect dunk into a non-existent net. “You know, like basketball.”

“….We are going to have a _conversation_ about your love of Muggle sports, m’dear.”

“Oh, _are_ we?” Sirius barely pops one eye open, because the only thing he likes to see is the trouble he’s caused.

“Oh yes, we bloody well are. You can’t shove a second year on the ceiling like that! God forbid what would have happened if you tried to tee off in here.”

“Wouldn’t do that,” Sirius responds, a little defensive because he knows he’s in trouble now. The girl knows she’s being talked about, and sniffles again. Remus feels momentarily guilty because it’s probably not the best of times to have a spat with his best friend while there’s some rescuing going on. “Besides, golf’s boring,” continues Sirius, because god forbid the child _stuck on the ceiling_ steals his attention.

“Oh, for fu-“ Remus breaks off the curse and draws in a deep breath through his nose to calm himself. “How do you _do_ this?” he demands of the ceiling, existentially, a few seconds later. He knows he sounds more plaintive when asking questions that can’t be answered: a beseeching tone comes into his voice, but then he does have a lot of practice at beseeching Sirius. “How do you even _manage_ this sort of thing? Wandless magic and a somehow perfect combination of gesture and incantation, both completely off the top of your head.”

“Oh you know, Remus, I am a genius,” Sirius says loftily, and manages a grin. Good. That means he’s in the game.

“Yes, yes, very pretty, very smart,” Remus tells him absently, straining to peer closer at the girl on the ceiling. He doesn’t need to look back to see Sirius all but preening. But he pulls his wand out, and asks her to close her eyes and stay still as he tries a charm.

“Tried that,” Sirius says, behind him, still flopped out on the couch.

Remus presses his lips together. So it’s not some sort of invisible fastening.

He tries another phrase.

“Tried that, too.” Sirius tells him, and it’s not especially meant to be helpful: he might be in the game, but it is just a game to him. Another competition, followed by some smug strutting. Sirius' real problems have always been far too sad and damaging that he lacks perspective with anything else. A child stuck on a ceiling is just an excuse for more of 'Anything I can do, you can't do better'. The barest notion of an idea starts to emerge in Remus' mind in response.

Remus even digs into some old Anglo-Saxon he’s learned in comparative magic: makes him sound like he has a hacking cough. Still, she stays.

“Right. Has anyone gone to Professor McGonagall?” he asks, turning to ignore the layabout on the couch, to dismiss Peter’s nerves, and runs his eyes over the younger students gathered and watching. They all shake their heads under that regard - they trust him, yes, but there’s always a sense of unease there as well. Children instinctually recognise both authority and predators, and well, Remus has both in spades. No-one wants to disappoint him, when it comes down to it.

“They haven’t,” Sirius tells him, sliding to sit properly on the couch now, and Remus doesn’t need to look around to hear the way Sirius’ eyes are narrowing. Remus’ lips compress to a thin smile: he’s got his attention, definitely.

“Oh, why would _that_ be?” he tosses casually over his shoulder, but he already knows the answer. Hearing it, though - that does give him a form of satisfaction.

“Because I told them that if any of them snitched I could always find something perfectly disgusting to put in their beds.”

There’s a shudder that goes through the assorted throng at that, and Remus can tell Sirius’ eyes are sharp and hard to go with the rough forbidding in his voice. Sirius after all, has a reputation; they all do, but James’ has found Lily, Peter just tags along, and Remus is the one typically telling them this was a very stupid idea and now he’s _still_ the only one considering how to best assign or evade blame.

It makes him mad, sometimes. It makes him cold and hard and honest and careless; the monster who can’t even spend time pretending to be a boy because he’s too busy fixing other people’s problems. “…Have I told you,” he wonders, lazily, and refuses to look at Sirius, to acknowledge him, to recognise their particularly sharp friendship, “that you’re an absolutely selfish beast of a person, Sirius Black?” It’s a distraction, really; falling into typical banter that batters and clears his glittering mind up for debating different spells and gestures and codes that might actually fix this. Savagery keeps the wolf at bay, and lets the wizard _think_.

Sirius isn’t a problem, though, even if all too often he feels like one. “…Not today,” Sirius counters, and there’s warmth to the sarcasm, a warmth that sinks down in Remus’ gut and makes him refuse to acknowledge it. “You’re getting a little rusty, Lupin. Reading too many books?”

Remus thinks of something like ‘At least I do read’ in response and discards it. That would just bring up how clever Sirius is while only barely touching a textbook. It’s a calm that descends upon him really, this interplay - it clarifies him, and allows more of him to think about that girl. “Sorry I interrupted your schedule. Didn’t realise I was your alarm clock.” The words falls from his lips and he crosses to stand under the girl, eyes peeled for consequence and opportunity, a plan starting to form.

“I needed to give you _some_ use,” Sirius points out, “other than just wearing tweed and getting in the way of our fun.”

“….This isn’t _fun_ , Sirius,” Remus says. It’s not the first time he’s said it, and it won’t be the last, and there’s that weariness that underscores his tone even as he reaches up to the girl, palm open, fingers outstretched, like she could land safely there.

Remus knows exactly where every single person is in the common room from heartbeat and smell, and the smoke from the fire stings the back of his throat.

He’s not normal, then. But none of them are allowed to be, not in this day and age, so he might as well put some of it to better uses, and crouches just a little to coil strength and poise in his haunches.

“Right. So we’re going to get you down.” He flashes the girl a smile, the sort of smile he uses with teachers and students and mothers everywhere, the ‘trust-me’ smile, and she believes. It helps him, anchors him, and so he starts to believe this might actually work. “Or rather, _you_ are.”

“…I am?” she asks softly, and Remus realises for a second he doesn’t really know her name. The younger students sort of blend into a mass of mess when he has Sirius to take care of. He really is a horrible Prefect and a general abuser of everyone’s trust, but he can do this. 

“Yes,” he nods. “You are. After all, Sirius isn’t that clever, I bet you can undo whatever he did.” He ignores the oh-so-audible sniff behind him, and his grin widens a little. Power is so often a matter of belief, even for wizards. Especially for wizards.

She manages a smile, and now, thankfully, the name comes to him, hits him like a blow. “Yes. He’s always _annoying_ , anyway.”

“Then you know my friend very well. Lucy. It is Lucy, isn’t it?” She’s from somewhere down south, Kent or somewhere. Not the hills (and vowels) of Wales, his mother’s country; or the soft Lancastrian burr of his father.

She nods at the mention of her name. It’s probably why she hasn’t spent the entire time crying; they raise their children with poise and privilege in the home counties. 

“Now, Sirius, go upstairs like a good boy and wait for me,” Remus says, without bothering to check if he’s obeyed. But his voices rings with a certain assured expectation, and he hears Sirius sulkily slide off the couch and all but slouch towards the stairs like someone being told to leave the table without dessert.

And Remus really doesn’t need one more thing to worry about, right now.

“Good. So you’re going to free yourself, and I’m going to catch you, and we’re going to show that annoying Sirius Black that anything he can do, a second year can do better. I want you to take a deep breath, close your eyes, and think about it what it feels like when you cast a charm. The way it builds up, makes you start to tingle.”

There’s another nod, then, and she closes her eyes, pressing her lips together. Children take things so seriously, even their make believe, and Remus remembers what that was like.

“You feeling it?”

“Yes.” Lucy’s voice is small but sure, her breathing speeding up.

Remus taps out a beat on the carpet: he’s not strictly musical - he hasn’t got a voice to do more than howl, most of the time - but there’s timing in his blood, in his bones, the wolf’s awareness of _when to strike_ in his soul. He hums a couple of bars of Bowie to himself just to make sure he’s got the pacing right, and finds he has. (It’s _Station to Station_ that he needs now, somewhere to store all that nervous energy and careful doubt that hovers on the edge of the incantation stuck somewhere in his throat.)

“Right then.” His voice is rough but quiet. Might as well commit. “Now, I’m going to count to five, and you’re going to say ‘Geronimo’ like it’s the biggest, and best spell you ever cast, and you’re going to push off from the ceiling like you’re taking a leap. It’ll feel like the first time you were on a broom. And I’m going to catch you.” Logically, it should work. Wandless magic can counteract itself, and the first acts of such are often spontaneous. Besides, he hasn’t got any other ideas. Calling McGonagall was more of a threat than a reality. For no other reason, he feels like this is a duty - he’ll be leaving school soon, and he should be able to protect at least one second year before he goes.

“You ready, Lucy?”

Everyone takes a breath. She nods.

Remus steadies himself, the chorus repeating in his head. He might not be the Thin White Duke, but there’s a demon on his back even if it isn’t cocaine. His addictions are writ in tooth and claw, instead, in agony and ecstasy. _It’s too late_ “One-“ _to be grateful_ “-Two-“ _It's too late_ “-Three-“ _to be late_ _again_ “-Four-” _It's too late_ “-Five- Jump!”

She pushes off, “Geronimo” like an incantation, like a prayer, and even as the Bowie still careers around Remus’ mind and settles all the bits and cares he doesn’t want to think about, he leaps in a way that’s more than strictly human, having used his position on the carpet to perfectly ground himself with the angle of Gryffindor Tower, the sizzle of magic in the air, the pull of the moon. As he leaps - _to be hateful / The European cannon is here_ \- he pulls his wand out of a tweedy pocket with one arm and stabs down, gathering Lucy in his free arm as best he can when they meet half-way, Remus yelling a charm that sears into the rug with a burst of light and thunder and radiates out with a force that makes some of the younger students shield their eyes and some topple over.

The world slows, like taffy stretched out, the adrenailne-and-more in his blood extending his senses, his awareness, the feel of his body and the pitch of the earth. He holds her close, so close, and he can feel and smell the way she’s got her tear-streaked face buried against his shoulder, but when Remus lands he does so with a rangy, leggy grace, feet spread wide, knees bent, and regards them all with eyes that oh-so-briefly glow gold in the firelight, lips peeling back from his teeth to reveal sharp canine incisors and a satisfied cast to his mouth, the relief of a job well done.

It's not the first time in his life he's felt so alive at being so inhuman, and it's that realisation which brings him back to himself: the schoolboy with the calm of a wolf.

“…Geronimo,” is what he mutters, pleased and breathing in bursts, the rush beginning to subside. He bends so Lucy can clamber down from his side, tucks away his wand, and tugs his robes into something a little less athletic and a little more studiously shabby.

He pats Lucy on the head, who is regarding him with wide, highly surprised eyes: but then most of the students are looking at him like he just did something amazing, which is rather probable, really. He feels as anchored to the floor under him as he does to the crowd around him and the moon that he can’t even see. Peter regards him with a mix of loathing and awe, which isn’t too unusual, either.

“Well,” Remus says, anything to dispel the spell he’s made of this: “I think everyone should get an early sleep, don’t you?” He pulls at his jacket, just to make the Prefect’s badge glint a little and the crowd breaks into stupefied little throngs of two and three, marching off to dorm rooms and stairwells, and glancing back behind as if the tall seventh-year was a figure of legend.

Remus breathes in; exhales, tests his ankles. He finds the carpet oddly springy, but then that was part of the incantation. Partly it’s due to other things as well; the moon is close to full, and he just wants to soar and leap and hunt.

Nodding to Peter who falls into line, Remus takes two steps at a time towards the seventh-year boys’ dormitory, ignoring the presence he can hear clumping up the steps behind him, all determination.

And why not? Now he’s shown Lucy she can do anything, why should she not be determined? It’s just another consequence on a long list of them.

“How did you do that?” Lucy wants to know.

“Not now, Lucy.”

“But how did you do that? How did you know? And the way you caught me, and leapt-“

“I’m a _wizard_ ,” Remus tells her, turning on her, but not unkindly. He blocks any further progress up the stairs, and crouches a little to meet her eyes. “Wizards do precisely what they intend to.”

“You got that out of a book,” Lucy tells him, accusingly, and crosses her arms over her chest.

“Yes. I did. Never feel bad about stealing someone else’s work if it’s good work,” he adds, fond and conspiratorially, and she giggles despite herself.

“Are you Gandalf the Grey or Gandalf the White, then?”

“Oh, I think you’ll find I’m Remus the Tweedy.” His lips deepen in a grin that’s made just for them, and she smiles at him, sunny, faith restored. And there’s no need for questions when you have faith. Fortunately. “Now,” and he taps the side of his nose, drawing another giggle: “I have to go deal with a Sirius.”

There’s a footfall from further up the stairs, just as Remus knew it would be, and Lucy’s eyes go wide and a little poleaxed as she lifts her gaze from Remus’ face to somewhere over his shoulder. “Sirius is here, and ready to be dealt with, Lupin.”

“Just a moment,” Remus tells Lucy, and turns on a heel.

“Sirius. What do you think would normally be the punishment for sticking someone on the ceiling?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t done it that often. We could try it again if you want a proper sample.” He’s pouting, which makes him more attractive and less useful. But a stroppy Sirius is an easily manipulated Sirius, so Remus has that in his favour.

“Lucy, I want you to go find our Head of House. Tell the Professor what happened to you, and that I’ve docked Gryffindor one hundred points.” His eyes never leave Sirius’: he wants to see Sirius crumple like someone’s kicked him in the gut. Which he does, predictably.

“Remus, you _can’t_ -”

“Make it two hundred, Lucy. Off you go.” He doesn’t need to look at her to know she’s nodding, pleased with herself and with him, and goes back down the stairs twice as fast as she came up, but carefully so.

“ _Upstairs_ ,” Remus snarls, and points, when it is just the three of them on the stairway.

“You have no idea what you were doing,” Sirius tells him, all too ready to start the argument even as he’s turning, so Remus just reaches out and lays a quick, heavy smack on his arse to get him moving.

Sirius jumps; Peter fidgets out of sympathy and doesn’t know which one to look at. Honestly, it’s like his parents are having a fight or something.

“ _Don’t talk to me_ ,” Remus orders. “Just _move_. I’m not ready to stop hating your guts yet.”

They get to the dorm in silence, and Remus is pleased to see it’s deserted, and knows it’s probably because of him: the few other seventh year boys know exactly what a row between Remus and Sirius is like: loud and long and peppered with invective and claims and calls to sympathy and aims. Remus feels momentarily annoyed that he and Sirius have upset even more of their fellow students tonight, and banks the annoyance as just another reason to start throwing things at Sirius.

Fortunately the nearest thing is a pillow.

Sirius ducks, and it goes sailing over his head and down the stairs. “Hey, Moony, watch it.”

Remus bares teeth and chucks a cushion at him. Sirius darts to one side.

“What did you think you were doing?” Remus roars, finally, now he is free to roar. “Putting a child on the ceiling, Padfoot. A _child_! On the bloody ceiling!” His hands shake and almost make claws, he’s so angry, the veins standing out on the back of fingers.

“It just happened, you know. I can’t be held to blame when things just happen,” Sirius scowls, because he never likes being told off, and slumps onto his bed.

“Well lots of bloody things ‘just happen’ around you. More magical talent than any one knows what to do with and less sense than a _first_ year.”

“Some of those things saved your bloody arse, _you know_.” Sirius' expecting some sort of gratitude - because he always does and always will - just makes Remus angrier. His best friend should not be a bottomless pit of abandonment issues because Remus only has so much to give.

“It was a _child_ , Sirius. _I_ haven’t been a child in quite a while.” He knows he sounds savage, and empty, and desperate, but Peter takes this opportunity to butt in.

“Remus is right, Sirius, there probably is something in the school code about sticking second years on the ceiling.” Typical Peter, meticulous and punctilious and trying to serve two masters by splitting the middle.

Remus just sees red. “It’s not about the _fucking rules_ ,” he yells, and knows he’s gesticulating wildly. “It’s because it’s not a good fucking thing to stick children on ceilings! Go _away,_ Peter!”

Predictably, Peter goes away, leaving a muttered series of apologies behind him.

Standing, feeling like he’s just run a race, Remus pauses while his shoulders heave and some of the red blotchiness goes from his face before his gaze moves from the empty doorway to his louche friend, petulant on the bed, hands tucked under his chin. “She could have cracked her wrist, she could have cracked her spine, she could have cracked her _skull_ , for God’s sake. Don’t you _care_?” his voice is unsteady and low and he doesn’t care how much it hurts for Sirius to hear the words, it hurts a bloody lot to say them.

“And we would have patched her up and made her better, Moony.” Sirius slides on his side to regard him. “We are wizards, as you mentioned. We don’t need to worry about the little things.”

Remus thinks of all the people who are permanently disabled all across the Muggle world; all the ones who die or fall lame, or lose themselves to comas and brain damage, for want of a proper spine, or skull. He doesn’t have the strength to argue any more.

“Magic doesn’t cure everything, Pads,” he says, with heavy sarcasm, and it’s his last, deliberate barb. “Or maybe you’d forgotten that.” _It can't cure me_. He doesn't need to say it to feel it lie heavy between them.

There’s no response from the other bed; the curtains fall shut without a word. Remus knows he probably won’t be forgiven tonight, but then he doesn’t want to be.

“I’m going to bed.” Peeling himself out of his robes, the material now feels too heavy. “Oh, fuck,” Remus mutters. “That was my bloody pillow I threw down the stairs.” He stares at his bedspread and wonders if he even has the energy to go after it. Seconds pass by like hours.

Those curtains open a crack, after an eternity: “You can always share mine,” Sirius ventures, tentatively, voice floating out from darkness.

Remus falls to the end of his own bed with a heavy yawn: “Will I get a five minute speech about how lucky I am to have a friend willing to share his pillow with me?”

“Only if I don’t get a five minute lecture on all the irresponsible things I’ve done lately.”

“Oh, it’d be at least ten,” Remus tells him, and manages a smile. He and Sirius are terrible together and even worse apart: it’s the way of such intense friendships, he hopes, and tries not to worry too much about being in love with his friend for the third time this month.

“Then you definitely get the speech. I’ll also require a detailed description of just how pretty I am, since you mentioned it earlier.” But Sirius is holding the curtains open now, and Remus idly tries to smooth down his jumper-mussed hair before slipping into his pyjama bottoms, and then slipping onto Sirius’ bed.

“Just how detailed?” Remus enquires, sliding his arms around Sirius’ body to pull the slightly shorter young man back against his chest, skin to skin. This is a thing they do; this has been part of them since James got all doe-eyed over Lily Evans and Peter just sort of bumbled along in their wake.

Neither of them likes sleeping alone, and the cuddling, while odd, isn’t the oddest thing ever. No, the oddest thing would be that Remus is single and Sirius has dated half the school and still they can be found spooning in one of their beds at least twice a week.

“As detailed as you can make it,” Sirius tells him tartly, and Remus huffs a chuckle against Sirius’ neck.

“Oh, I can be…very loquacious when necessary,” Remus murmurs, and enjoys the slight shudder from the man in his arms.

“I’ve read your essays, Lupin. All those words. Very boring. I’m a lot more interesting than any of your studies.”

“Do you think I could get an NEWT in Sirius Black?” wonders Remus, entirely too innocent to be strictly true. “Do they even give those out?”

“I think your grade would be rather high,” Sirius observes, trying for poe-faced seriousness, and he largely makes it before they both snicker.

In the dark, Sirius is warm and close and smells wonderful. Remus knows he’s at least a little half-hard pressed up against Sirius' rather lovely backside, but fortunately Sirius just made a joke that first time about how _everyone_ should be aroused by Sirius Black and it wasn’t spoken of again.

There’s a few moments of blissful silence, before Sirius breaks it. “Moony, could you just - you scared me,” he offers, and it is an offer, soft and true and stricken and more real for the hurt on the edge of his tone. “Don’t be angry with me, please. I probably give you lots of reasons to be, but - I can cope with anything except you being angry with me.”

There’s another few moments where Remus feels his heart positively expand with emotion- pride and love and rue, all mixed together, and he hugs Sirius even closer to him, nosing into long hair. “…Sorry, dear. I never want to be a monster where you’re concerned.”

“You’re not a monster, Moony,” Sirius folds one of his hands over the entwined ones keeping him safe and close. “You’re just you. Besides, no monster dresses the way you do. You’re like a grumpy professor, fifty years too early. You probably would make a very good teacher, really. If you wanted.”

Remus isn't quite sure if he's up for career planning just yet. “Ah. Maybe I’m just tired of all you maddening bright young things, then.”

“….Mmmm. Am I really that bright?”

Remus chuckles low and soft, somewhere deep in him, bubbling up like a fountain. Oh, but he could love this man, and hate him, and worry about him, and fear for him, but isn’t that the point? “You are Sirius Orion Black,” and he presses a small kiss to the curve of that neck. “You’re the brightest star in any constellation I’ve ever seen. And you managed to make me feel human.”

He does cry then, a few sniffled tears that trail down his cheeks and fall into already damp hair.

“That was easy,” Sirius tells him. “You’re the best of us, you know. James takes charge whether people want him to or not, and butts heads. Peter’s a big, scared, fat rat, and I just want someone to not kick me out of the kennel again.” There’s a laugh in his voice, but it’s strained - Sirius Black absolutely hates talking about himself, but he manages, for Remus. “Sometimes when we go out on a romp, you’re - you’re the careful one, and the wise one. Wolves can be amazing, you know. Deadly, but amazing. They always look out for their packs.”

Remus lets out one sob, trying to turn it into a strangled laugh. It doesn’t go very well, but he doesn’t know what to say. _I love you_ seems inadequate to the occasion, not fully encompassing the truth of what they might be to one another, both in here and out there, where a dog rolls over for a wolf and bares his throat in an act of loyal submission.

“Thank you, m’dear.” Remus sniffs again, and finds he doesn’t really sound like a drowned rat - no offence to Peter intended.

Then there is silence, and warmth, and the hint of an understanding that doesn’t need words. They’ve only kissed a couple of times - two and a half, Remus assesses, to be exact - and well, Sirius does try to have it off with everybody, so it’s not like it was never going to happen. There's lots of excuses and reasons and explanations to demonstrate that what they have isn't too odd or too special or requires particular explanation, and both prefer not to have it explained.

“….I think, after school, we should move in together.”

Remus opens his eyes, and blinks. “Oh?”

“Well, James and Evans will probably be _breeding_ soon enough, and Peter - well, I’m not living with Peter, am I? But,” Sirius starts, deliberately a little bratty, because some of that is definitely a facade, the landed rich boy with a sense of entitlement that goes half the way to London, “I do need someone to cook. And generally be around. Laugh at my jokes. Tell me I’m pretty. You know.”

“When you come home absolutely wasted, I’ll be the one holding your head to make sure you vomit properly in the toilet bowl, hmmm?” Remus teases, and takes the opportunity to kiss Sirius’ hair.

“Moony,” Sirius protests, “I have no reason to be concerned about _alcohol_. Alcohol does have several reasons to be concerned about _me_.”

“Oh, I’ve definitely seen _that_.”

“C’mon,” Sirius assures him, after a moment, all arch and coy and completely transparent, “don’t you _want_ me to come home to you?”

“Oh, Sirius Black, you are the most perfectly impossible person in the whole wide world.” Remus doesn’t think sometimes his voice can stand the complexity of emotions that Sirius draws out of it, husky and enchanted despite himself.

“I’ll take that,” declares Sirius triumphantly, “as a _yes_.”


End file.
